Victoria Nelson - Blood Lines Part 15

"No, sir. I thought I'd try to get your support first."

"Well," he stood and came around the desk, "I'll have a look at your written proposal and get back to you say, late next week?"

"That would be fine, sir." Vicki stood as well and slid her own copy back into her bag.Let's just hope we haven't all had our lives sucked out our noses by then . "Thank you for taking the time to listen."

"Always willing to listen to a good idea." He paused at the door to smile up at her. "And that was a good idea. A little visible law and order at an early age might tarnish the appeal of petty crime. I'm very interested in raising the police profile in the province's schools."

"Yes, sir, I know." She slipped past him. "That's why I'm here."

His smile broadened. "It was a pity you had to leave the force, Ms. Nelson, you were one of the best.

How many citations was it? Two?

"No, sir. Three."

"Yes, good job. I can't imagine civilian life suits you as well."

"Not as well, no." She adjusted her gla.s.ses and forced the corners of her mouth up. "But it's been...

interesting."

"Glad to hear it."

Vicki let the closing door cut off her smile and, shrugging her bag onto her shoulder, she crossed the outer office, conscious of disapproving eyes on her back.Give it a break, lady , she thought upon safely reaching the reception area,before I forget which side I'm on and stuff my white hat up your nose .

The visit could pretty much be considered a wasted effort; if George Zottie was being controlled by the mummy, she couldn't see it.Which may mean nothing more than it's a subtle son of a b.i.t.c.h. G.o.d, what I wouldn't give for a nice simple divorce case right about now, one where you start out with a photograph of the bad guy ...

The elevator chimed and she hurried to catch it before someone called it away. At first, she thought the man who pushed his way out as the doors opened was drunk, but an instant later she realized he wasactually unwell. His skin had a grayish cast, sweat beaded his upper lip and forehead. One long-fingered, exquisitely manicured hand crushed his cashmere overcoat toward his stomach, the other groped blindly at the air.

Vicki ducked under the moving arm and deftly guided him toward a chair. Fortunately he wasn't much larger than she was as, during the moment between standing and sitting, his entire weight came down on her shoulders. He murmured something in a language she didn't know, but as his looks placed his ethnic background in north Africa, Vicki a.s.sumed it was Arabic.

Recognizing his condition could be adding years to her estimate, she placed his age at somewhere between thirty and forty. His facial features were uninspiring-two eyes, a nose, and a rather thin-lipped mouth in the usual arrangement-but even sick and unfocused as he was, he had a perceptible force of personality.

Attempting to hold him steady, Vicki jerked around at an unfamiliar noise behind her and saw that the receptionist had just finished pulling back the thick maroon curtains that covered a wall of windows. With a convulsive shudder, the stranger fixed his gaze on the view-gray skies, the Coroner's Building, made of more pink extruded concrete, and a little farther on Police Headquarters-and seemed to relax.

Frowning, Vicki let the receptionist adroitly take her place as ministering angel. As far as she could see, there wasn't anything especially comforting out the... Then she had it. "He's claustrophobic, isn't he?"

"Very." The young woman had undone the top two b.u.t.tons of the overcoat. "The elevator is sheer terror for him."

"Yet he still uses it..."

"He'svery brave." Her expression grew slightly misty.

"That will be enough, Ms. Evans." The older woman from the inner office advanced purposefully across the dark gray carpet, lowered brows demanding to know what Vicki was doing so close to such an important visitor. "Please, Mr. Tawfik, allow me."

Vicki left before she threw up.Although , she mused, as she rode down in an elevator that suddenly seemed a lot smaller than it had,if this thing causes that violent a reaction and he keeps using it, he is very brave. Or moderately m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic . While she had no idea of what sort of diplomatic position the stranger held, she wasn't surprised at the reactions he'd evoked. Something about him, in spite of his condition, reminded her of Henry.

"Is thereanything I can get you, Mr. Tawfik."

"No. Thank you." Keeping his gaze firmly locked on the window and the s.p.a.ce beyond it, he forced his breathing to calm. Gradually his heartbeat slowed and the spasms that twisted his gut into knots eased and finally stopped. He pulled a linen handkerchief from the pocket of his suit, fingers still slightly trembling, and wiped the sweat from his face.

Then he frowned at the two women hovering an arm's length away. "There was a third..."

"Merely a visitor, Mr. Tawfik. No one foryou to concern yourself about."

"I shall be the judge of that." Even in his distress her ka had held a certain familiarity. A flavor he had notquite been able to identify. "Her name?"

"Nelson," the younger woman offered. "Victoria Nelson. Mr. Zottie knew her from when she was on the police force."

No. Her name meant nothing to him. But he couldn't shake the feeling that he had touched her ka before.

"May I inform Mr. Zottie that you've arrived?"

"You may." He had made it very clear, right from the beginning, that the Solicitor General was not to be called until he had completely recovered. Control must come from strength and a personal weakness would weaken the whole. The women of this culture were trained to nurture weakness, not despise it, and, while in theory he disapproved, he would, in practice, use the att.i.tude. By the time George Zottie had hurried out to the reception area, anxious to escort his newest adviser into the inner sanctum, he had all but recovered from the effects of the elevator. The mild nausea that remained could not be seen, so it did not matter.

Leading the way toward the double doors, he could feel the heat of the younger woman's gaze. She had created her desire from the merest brush across her ka, intended only to ensure her loyalty; he had not placed it there nor did he welcome it. If truth be told, he found the whole concept vaguely distasteful and had found it so for centuries before he'd been interred. The older woman had responded to a show of power-thathe understood.

His plans for the Solicitor General had required a more thorough remaking.

Once they were alone inside the office with the doors tightly closed behind them, he held out his hand.

Zottie, with remarkable grace for a man of his bulk, dropped to one knee and touched his lips to the knuckles. When he rose again, his expression had become almost beatifically calm.

The scribe-the press secretary-had given him the key to Zottie and fifteen hundred years of dealing with bureaucracy had enabled him to use it. He had gone to their first meeting with a spell of confusion ready on his palm. He had pa.s.sed it through the ceremonial touching, activated it, and with it gained access to the ka. In the past, a man with this much power would have had powerful protections, would have most likely kept a wizard in his employ solely to prevent exactly this sort of manipulation. At times, he still found it difficult to believe that it could be so easy.

There wasn't much of George Zottie left.

With Zottie, he could go one by one to the others he needed to build a base for his power but, with Zottie, that was no longer necessary; they would come to him.

"Has it been done?"

"As you commanded." The Solicitor General lifted a handwritten list off his desk and offered it with a slight bow. "These are the ones who will be in attendance. In spite of the short notice, most of those invited have agreed to come. Shall Ireinvite the others?"

"No. I can acquire them later." He scanned the list. Only a few of the t.i.tles were familiar. That would not do.

"I need a man, an elderly man, one who has spent his life in government but not as a politician. One whoknows not only the rules and regulations, but one who knows..." The first ka he had taken supplied a phrase and he smiled as he used it. "... where the bodies are buried."

"Then you need Brian Morton. There isn't anything or anyone around Queen's Park he doesn't know."

"Take me to him."

"... an unfortunate occurrence at Queen's Park this afternoon as senior official Brian Morton was found dead at his desk of a heart attack. Morton had been employed by the Ontario Government for forty-two years. Solicitor General George Zottie, in whose ministry Morton was serving at the time of his death, said that he had been an inspiration to younger men and that his knowledge and experience will be missed. Morton's widow expressed the belief that her husband had not been looking forward to his retirement in less than a year and, if given a choice, he would have preferred to die, as he did, with his boots on. Funeral services will be held Monday at Our Lady of the Redeemer Church in Scarborough.

And now, here's Elaine with the weather."

Vicki frowned and switched off the television. Reid Ellis and Dr. Rax had died of heart failure at the museum. The mummy had come from the museum. Brian Morton died of a heart attack while in the employ of the Solicitor General. She believed the mummy was using the Solicitor General to gain control of the police and build its own private army. Morton was an older man, his death could be coincidence.

She didn't think so.

Henry thought the mummy might be feeding. It had been free for a week now; how often did it have to feed?

She pulled the papers for the last week off the "to be recycled" pile to the left of her desk and sat down on her weight bench to read them.Sudden deaths in public places... makes sense to check the tabloid first .

It took her less than ten minutes to find the first article. Two inches square on the bottom right-hand corner of page twenty-two, it would have been easy to miss except for the headline. "BOY DIES MYSTERIOUSLY ON SUBWAY." The body had been removed from the University Subway line at Osgoode Station, Queen Street, and had been p.r.o.nounced dead on arrival at Sick Children's Hospital.

Cause of death, heart failure. Osgoode was three stops south of Museum. The date was October 20th.

The time, nine forty-five. Only hours after Dr. Rax had died and everyone began declaring that the coffin was and always had been empty.

Vicki's hands closed into fists and her fingers punched through the newsprint. The boy had been twelve years old. Teeth clenched, she clipped the article, then slowly and methodically ripped the paper into a thousand tiny pieces.

It was almost three a.m. before she found the second death buried in a story about child care facilities under investigation. On Thursday, October 22nd, a three-year-old had plunged off the top of a play structure at the Sunnyview Co-op Daycare and, according to the autopsy, had been dead before hitting the ground. Only one long block along Bloor Street separated the Sunnyview Co-op Daycare from the museum.

Tuesday afternoon, after seeing Henry safely into the day and catching a few hours of sleep, Vicki stood with one hand resting on the chain link fence that surrounded the Daycare Center where the second child had died.Not much of a barrier , she thought, rubbing at a wire pebbled with rust.Not when you add areanimated evil to all the other dangers of the city . Although the sky was gray and heavy with moisture, no rain fell and the playground seethed with small people. Here, half a dozen a.s.saulted a tower made of wood and tires and rope while its four defenders shrieked defiance. There, two used the empty cement wading pool as the perfect racetrack. Here, one squatted in rapt contemplation of a puddle.

There, three argued the rights of a slide. And through it all, in the s.p.a.ces between the scenes where Vicki's limited vision couldn't take her, children ran and jumped and played.

There should be one more. She followed the fence up the driveway and, lips tight, entered the building.

"... all right, the death of a child under her care might drive the rest of the day out of her mind-I'll give her that, I've seen it happen before-but it's the way she didn't remember things, Henry. It just didn't ring true."

Henry looked up from the pair of clippings, his face expressionless. "So what do you think happened?"

"She was in the playground, not ten feet from where the child fell. I think she saw it. I think she saw it and it wiped the memory from her mind, just like it did at the museum."

"Byit you mean...?"

"The mummy, Henry." Vicki finished stamping down another length of the living room and whirled around to start back. "I mean the G.o.dd.a.m.ned mummy!"

"Don't you think you're jumping to conclusions?" He asked the question as neutrally as he could, but even so, it brought her shoulders up and her brows down.

"What the h.e.l.l do you mean?"

"I mean, children die. For all sorts of reasons. It's sad and it's horrible, but it happens. I was the only one of my mother's children to make it out of early childhood."

"That was the fifteenth century!"

"And in this century children have stopped dying?"

She sighed and her shoulders dropped. "No. Of course not. But Henry..." A half dozen quick strides took her across the room to his chair where she dropped to her knees and laid her hands over his. "...

these two were taken by the mummy. I know that. I don't know how I know it, but I know. Look, cops are trained to observe. We, they, do it all the time, everywhere. They may not consciously recognize everything they see or hear as important, but the subconscious is constantly filtering information until all the bits and pieces add up to a whole." She tightened her grip and lifted her eyes to meet his. "Iknow the mummy took out these two kids."

He held her gaze until her eyes began to water. She felt naked, vulnerable-worth the price if he believed her.

"Perhaps," Henry said thoughtfully at last, finally allowing her to look away, "there are those few who take observing one step further, who can see to the truth..."

"Oh, Christ, Henry." She retrieved the newspaper clippings and stood. "Don't give me any of that New Age metaphysical bulls.h.i.+t. It's training and practice, nothing more." "If you wish." Over the centuries he'd seen a number of things that "training and practice" couldn't have accounted for, but as he doubted Vicki would react well to a discussion of those experiences, he let it drop. "So if you're right about the mummy and the children," he spread his hands, "what difference does it make? We're no closer to finding it."

"Wrong." She jabbed the word into the air with a finger. "We know it's staying around the museum and Queen's Park. That gives us an area in which to concentrate a search. We know it's continuing to kill, not just to protect itself from discovery but for other reasons. Feeding, if you wish. We know it's killing children. And that," she snarled, "gives us an incentive to find it and stop it. Quickly."

"Are you going to tell all this to the detective?"

"To Celluci? No." Vicki leaned her forehead against the gla.s.s and stared down at the city. She couldn't see a d.a.m.ned thing but darkness; since she'd entered Henry's building, the city might as well have disappeared. "It's my case now. This'll only upset him."

"Very considerate," Henry said dryly. He saw a muscle in her cheek move and the corner of her mouth twitch up a fraction. Her inability to lie to herself was one of the traits he liked best about her. "What do you want me to do?"

"Find it."

"How?"

Vicki turned from the window and spread her arms. "Weknow what area to search. You're the hunter. I thought you got its scent from the coffin."

"Not one I could use." The stink of terror and despair had all but obscured any physical signature. Henry hurriedly pushed the memory, and the shadows that flocked behind it, away. "I'm a vampire, Vicki. Not a bloodhound."

"Well, it's a magician. Can't you track power surges and stuff?"

"If I am nearby when it happens, I'll sense it, yes, as I sensed the demonic summonings last spring. But,"

he raised a cautioning hand, "if you'll remember, I couldn't track them back to their source either."

Vicki frowned and began to pace again. "Look," she said after a moment, "would you know it if you saw it?"

"Would I recognize a creature of ancient Egypt reanimated after being entombed alive for millennia? I think so." He sighed. "You want me to stake out the area around the museum, don't you? Just in case it wanders by."

She stopped pacing and turned to face him. "Yes."

"If you're so sure it'll be at this party on Sat.u.r.day night, why can't we wait until then?"

"Because today's Tuesday, and in four days who knows how many more children may die."

Henry shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his leather overcoat and sat down on one of the woodand cement benches scattered out in front of the museum. A cold, damp wind skirted the building, dead leaves rising up and performing a dance macabre in the gusts and eddies. The occasional car appeared to be scurrying for cover, fragile contents barely barricaded against the night.

This wasn't going to work. The odds of him running into the mummy, even in Vicki's limited search area, because it just happened to be casting a spell as he wandered by were astronomical. He pulled a hand free and checked his watch. Three twelve. He'd still be able to get in a good three hours of writing if he went home now.

Then a wandering breeze brought a familiar scent. He stood and had anyone been watching it would have seemed he disappeared.

A lone figure walked east on Bloor, jacket collar turned up against the cold, chin and elbows tucked in tight, eyes half closed. Ignoring the red light at Queen's Park Road, he started across the intersection, following the silver plume of his breath.

"Good morning, Tony."

"Jesus Christ, man." Tony scrambled to regain his footing as his purely instinctive sideways dive was jerked into a non-event by Henry's precautionary grip on his arm. "Don't do that!"

"Sorry. You're out late."

"Nah, I'm out early. You're out late." They reached the curb and Tony turned to peer at Henry's face.

"You hunting?"